Sega On Why Sonic Boom Uses Cryengine 3

Sonic Boom, an upcoming game for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, is being developed by Big Red Button Entertainment, rather than Sega’s Sonic Team. Additionally, the Wii U version of the game is being made using Crytek’s Cryengine 3 technology.

“You associate CryEngine with lush, tropical, beachy things. These are also things with which Sonic is associated, so they work together,” Frost said.

Sonic Boom actually runs on a modified version of Cryengine 3 that allows the engine to execute split-screen gaming, which it isn’t normally capable of.

“We worked in close contact with Crytek in Germany, and the team there is pretty excited about that as well,” said Big Red Button CEO and visual director, Bob Rafai. “In the end, it was simply the right choice for the project.”

They are using the CryEngine? Nice choice! I don’t think there are many people who’d feel adventurously enough to use it for other genres that aren’t hyper realistic. SEGA says: “Their loss, kupo.”

TheGameTagerZ

The engine is fine.

The models though..

Kaetsu

It’s really weird. The environments look amazing but then the characters look like they came out of ClayFighters.

PreyMantis

It’s too early to say that this is it for the game when the game is still in development.

Erde

I hate this argument since it is in the essence, bullshit.

When studios show their games publicly they usually are looking like the end product unless they specifically state otherwise.

Actually, often the images are more polished up thatn it will look like in reality. Like in the case of most console games, they release screenshots from a build running on PC with way higher texture resolutions, etc than will end up in the actual console release.

When ever some fanboy or whatever screams “it’s just in beta it can/will still change (to better)!” I die a little inside.

PreyMantis

I half agree because there are also games that look better after completion than during the beta phase of the game. Stop assuming that all developers are all like that because they aren’t.

Erde

From several decades of gaming experience, working in the game industry, and game programming,, 99,9% of cases when graphical completion of beta stage is being showcased, it is finalized or near completion. Furthermore, main characters models, rigging and animation are the first ones done when it comes to modeling. That’s common sense. I’m quite sure what you are seeing now is what we are going to get.

PreyMantis

I can’t say I believe you since anyone can be a developer or a doctor in the internet; however, you can also be right and I’m just being a dick. Nevertheless, even if you were right, it’s not going to change the fact that not all developers, development studios, and development cycle are all the same. Unless you work, worked, or will be working at BRB, you’re argument is not too feasible without any actual credibility or source.

They definitely do look different, but it fits in with the environments imo.

Scissors

To be fair that’s not really the game developers fault. Since this is a tie in game with the show they had to make the character models look like the tv show. That being said hopefully all this time in development will make the character models look a little better than they do in the initial reveal.

Kaetsu

They definitely have enough time to do some polishing so I wouldn’t be surprised if they look better the next time we see them.

Astralwyrm

Is it me or does sonic look… stick manish in that picture?

harmonyworld

He’s always looked like that~
Well….kinda, but yeah~

kaimo

Better than using unreal. Again.

I wonder what the framerate’s going to be capped at.

Kaetsu

Probably 30 but who knows since Nintendo has a bunch of games running at 60 on the Wii U like Mario 3D World, Wind Waker HD, Smash Bros, Mario Kart and Bayonetta 2.

KrazyBean

Wind Waker HD doesn’t run at 60 frames.

Kaetsu

My bad. You are correct however it does run at 1080p.

KrazyBean

Yep, it does.

King Chibi

all that stuff doesnt matter unless your a really big AAA title like mass effect

kaimo

Actually it matters a hell of a lot if you’re making an action game that requires reaction time; A Devil May Cry game running at 30 frames per second for instance would be completely unacceptable.

Sonic games haven’t run at 60 FPS since Sonic Heroes because of the emphasis on shiny graphics in the 7th Gen. Technically 06 was supposed to but it couldn’t hold it for long.

Lost World delivered, though it didn’t need it nearly as much as unleashed did since sonic moved so much slower.

Chee Yang

i just realized I have a Wii U now. Bayonetta 2 exclusive to Wii U? I’m not even worried anymore.

PreyMantis

Looking back at the trailer, it looks like it will be running at 60fps. If they can make a chaotic game like Wonderful 101 be at 60fps, I don’t see how they can’t do it with this game.

kaimo

Uuuh the trailer on youtube which is locked at 30? Where else is it hosted at?

And, again, if W101 that is more over-the-top chaotic can run at 60fps, it’s in the realm of possibility that this will, too.

kaimo

Sonic colors and Generations both run at 30 fps. Only the PC version of Generations runs at 60, provided your rig will allow it.

Lost World runs at 60 as previously established.

James Enk

i like this new approach to Sonic, to me everything looks promising

Rafael Martines

That Sonic model looks like that fail cosplayers in anime events XD

subsamuel01

I’m actually looking forward to this game. Sonic has been so stale lately I like how their trying to mix things up even if it upsets some fans.

Kaetsu

Lost World was a step in right direction but I felt it needed another 6 months of development time to polish things up. Aside from that I haven’t played a good Sonic game since Heroes.

EverEndingStory

To me, Lost World was like Unleashed. Parts of it (namely the parts focused on straight point A-to-point B speedrun platforming) were amazing. Just like Unleashed, they experimented in that aspect to great success. But they went way beyond that in their experimentation, and most of the other experiments they tried were failures.

The parkour was great, but you should never slow down Sonic intentionally. The way you run in that game is beyond stupid and the homing attack having a 2 second delay was even more ridiculous.

Generations got the speed based game play right imo. While Lost World threw it out the window, slowed down Sonic, and added parkour… the only good things were the parkour and platforming.

But I still prefer the high-speed game play of Unleashed and Generations. =/

British_Otaku

Sonic games have a new idea or three for every installment in the series. The real problem is that those ideas don’t stick for every person ever (I prefer Lost World 3DS to Wii U and am not fond of the Unleashed-esque formula).

Now I’m curious. This is a very un-Sonic game (different team, different game engine, etc.). But with how “bad” Sonic games have been over the last 2-3 console generations (poor reviews and heavy criticism), will it be successful? Can Big Red Button make a better 3D Sonic game than Sonic Team could?

Kaetsu

At this point Sonic Boom can only be good compared to a lot of the recent Sonic games. With the brand new team I think we’ll see a lot of fresh ideas put into to this project. I also have more faith in Big Red Button since they are a western game company and I find that Sonic Team doesn’t understand what we want. At least with BRB, these are a bunch people that probably played a lot of Sonic growing up and understand what the fans want.

well they really dont have to show it by doing this they actually ruined him we already knew that knuckles=brute force
sonic=super speed….etc

Brandonmkii

Wasn’t knucks like, the same same size as sonic? I see this as a more approximate physique for someone in a “brute force” role

British_Otaku

Perhaps, but it still only makes sense for the cartoon and by extension this game. His colour scheme, his gloves, personality, voice and build still pronounced him as more of a brute force type long ago.

Simply because he is that type of character doesn’t mean that it needs more hints, when listening to any 10 seconds of dialogue will say as much.

Freud_Hater

…So I’m not very well-versed when it comes to gaming engines and stuff. Why exactly is CryEngine 3 associated with ‘lush, tropical, beachy things’? Oo

Kaetsu

Because of games like Crysis that used the engine.

darke

IMO, Crysis was always associated with “bringing your PC to it’s knees”, rather then “great foliage”; even the most powerful rigs when it was originally released had issues playing the game with all details turned on.

Kaetsu

Not only is this game using the CryEngine but a leaked screenshot suggests that the game uses DirectX11. I can think of two companies that lied to us.

ZekeFreek

Right. Because everyone knows that the problem with modern Sonic games has been the GRAPHICS this entire time, right?

Kaetsu

It’s not like they’re saying that they’re focusing all their effort on good looking graphics. I’m sure the game will be very fun to play as well as have some good looking eye-candy.

ZekeFreek

I’m sure the game will look nice. But I was just saying that was never an issue to begin with.

Just a joke.

King Chibi

hnmm show some gameplay footage. im getting bored of games. i played so many now a bunch are starting to feel rehash and not so fresh. even with characters and plots….. ohh its another blah blah blah…..

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